Palo Duro Canyon, TX

Thanks to our friend Jim, we learned of Palo Duro Canyon State Park just south of Amarillo. Beautiful! Looks like Arizona! Wildlife - Gregg spotted coyote, deer and tarantula - just like home. All campsites have ramadas over the picnic tables. The whole park is down in the canyon, very picturesque. Lots of hiking and biking trails we would have loved to use had it not been so danged HOT.

O-o-o-o-oklahoma

There! Now YOU can get that song stuck in your head too... (sorry 'bout that.)

That's Bass Pro Shop in the background in Oklahoma City, one of my favorite "campgrounds", free with fun shopping and amazing decor. This one with a whole heard of bison in the store.

This is within easy walking distance of OK City's beautiful Bricktown, restored part of downtown with parks, canal, water taxi and narrated ride, 18 full size bronze statues of OK history (with plans to eventually have 49 statues). Also an easy walk to see the memorial for the OK City bombing of the Alfred Murrah Federal Building. Stirring site - 168 chairs represent the 168 lives lost.

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The size of the OK BBQ certainly rivals what I would have called Texas-sized. It took me three meals to finish this sandwich.

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Birthday dinner at one of our favorite restaurants ever. Not much to look at (notice the landscaping by the front door) inside or out, but the BEST catfish and fixin's imaginable.

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I LOVE my birthday present! (I always do as Gregg likes me to find something I want and just tell him where to get it. This I found in Michigan's U.P. in July and had to wait 'til now to get it.) It's sliced agates and just gorgeous with sun shining through it, leaded like stained glass. Thanks, Gregg!

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See how wet it is outside the window? We sat out tropical storm Hermine in this Chickasaw National Recreation Area - beautiful campground. 8 inches of rain in 2 days near here.

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We were cozy & dry and quite content with our books, Boston Legals, TV, Internet, full fridge and liquor cabinet. Life is Good.

Toto, I've a feeling we ARE in Kansas!

Enjoying Wichita, along the Arkansas River, with its beautiful statue the Keeper of the Plains and a 9pm lighting of a Ring of Fire each night.

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Hutchinson, Kansas delighted us with a stay in the nice campgrounds at the site of the Kansas State Fair and something new to us - a salt mine. Very interesting! Suited up with hard hats and emergency air devices (which have NEVER been needed here), we descended 650' into a working salt mine and underground storage vaults.

Precious and fragile things such as this newspaper printed the day after President Lincoln was shot and George Clooney's batman costume and Hollywood movie films are stored here.

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And, we got to have coffee with friends Donna and Hap.
We met them in Prescott several years ago when they stayed with us as part of the P.E.O. Bed and Breakfast program. Fun to stay in touch with friends like this.

Family Time

We've been so busy with family events that I've fallen way behind on doing pictures and blogging. Here's some catch-up:

Gregg's brother Gary is a Shriner who rides in the Famous White Horse Mounted Patrol, a 90 year old institution of Sioux City, IA. A highlight of our time in IA is visiting the stables of these gorgeous horses.

That's El Dorado, one of the performing white horses nearing retirement, watching his buddies perform.






This is the branch of the Schindel family that is descended from Jacob Schindel - most of us anyway, including in-laws. We were the biggest branch contingent of the 70+ person reunion that Gregg wrote about.

Many of the Schindel reunion participants attended the Melbourne United Methodist Church service and boosted their normal attendance of about 20 to over 50, nearly filling the beautiful little 150 year old church. It sits on the site of the now-defunct town of Melbourne, that gave up the ghost after the railroad and paved highway went through Hinton instead of Melbourne, about 2 miles from the Schindel Family farm.

One of the things Gregg and I love about going to church there is seeing our friend Margaret Spies, 100 years old last February, still self-supporting in her own home and sharp as a tack. Here she is with our one year old Great-granddaughter Jordie and Fiance-Granddaughter-in-Law Katie. 100 plus 1.

One of our reunion activities was a float down the Floyd River that runs through the Schindel farm. Lots of rain this year made for a very wide fast moving river, lots of fun and lots of mud!

Then we were off for Nebraska for more time with Gregg's kids and grand-kids. Found ourselves a beautiful new city park in Omaha (not really wanting to return to the one in which we were burglarized in May!).

Weather which had been oppressively hot and humid has cooperated so nicely for us. We had a little cooler spell for the 3 days of the Iowa reunion, then more hot, then cooler again for our Nebraska visits. Nice enough for eating outside again!

Hannah got to spend two overnights with us and get a lot of fishing time in. She fishes just like Gregg and me - fishing, not catching.

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Taylor modeled for me - the knit shoulder wraps that I have been making.

Now we are in Columbus, NE at Grandson Brandon's house and will stay here for some of the boys' football games.

Then... Wichita, Kansas next. Haven't been there yet this year!

Grandkid-Land

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Schindel Family Reunion

We held a Schindel family reunion in Plymouth County, Iowa over the weekend of August 13 - 15 with over seventy people attending from all over the country. All were descendants of my great-great grandfather, Peter Schindel, who was born in a small town just south of Frankfurt, Germany in 1828. Peter came to the U.S. on a small sailing ship in 1853 at the age of 25 and lived in New York and Illinois briefly before coming to Sioux City, Iowa to homestead in Plymouth Township, Plymouth County, Iowa. My cousin, Susan Holtgrew, has traced the Schindel family history back to our ancestor, Theobald Schindel who was born in Bechtolsheim, Rheinnhessen, Hesse, Germany in 1670. We had an evening get together at the Longbranch in Hinton, Iowa on Friday evening, then a day-long picnic in the town park in Merrill, Iowa. We had ample opportunity to visit after everyone took a turn telling a little about themselves and why they had come to the reunion. The reunion was brought to a close on Sunday with a picnic at the Schindel Family farm near Merrill. Many attendees visited the Floyd Valley Cemetery near the now-defunct village of Melbourne where Peter Schindel as well as my great-grandfather Jacob Schindel, grandfather, Allen Schindel as well as my parents are buried. We had a great time meeting new relatives as well as reconnecting with others. I was proud that both son, Doug and daughter, Cindy as well as their entire families were able to attend. Great-granddaughter, Jordie Schindel, who is just sixteen months old was also in attendance with her parents Brandon and Katie.

Serendipity

So we were just driving along yesterday, about to relocate to Iowa. Then Gregg notices a sign for a Threshers Festival. We'd only been on the road about an hour but, heck, we have several days to get to Iowa from Minneapolis. So we pulled in and found a fun little weekend long festival with free camping on a shady, grassy lot. Gregg's been wanting to find one of these - a Threshing Bee or Thresheree. The old-time steam and gas engines demonstrate threshing, the separation of grain and chaff. Flea market, craft fair, cloggers, music, fair food, and more. Hundreds of tractors are here and there has been a 60-90 minute parade of them each afternoon.

When we first arrived we walked in, saw a sign for wagon rides and hopped on the wagon. We rode with them around the festival grounds right to the start of the parade - what luck we thought, perfect timing! Then the lady sitting in front of us struck up conversation because she wondered who we were. We told her we wanted to see the parade and then she informed us that we were IN the parade, riding on the quilting ladies' wagon that always starts their parade! We laughed and laughed and jumped off that wagon at our first opportunity...

Having a good time here.

Crazy route to Iowa

We did some rejiggering of our plans the last couple of weeks. I wanted to attend a cousin's Memorial service in Illinois at the farm where my Mom was born. So I took the Greyhound (fun experience...) to Chicago and joined my sister and niece there. We had a great couple of days and squeezed in attending the musical Billy Elliott (Wow!) downtown.

We had a great time with family remembering a very colorful aviator, 87 year old cousin, seeing his ashes spread over the farm where Mom was born and where he grew up.












Then, being near a big airport, I decided to fly to Phoenix for 3 days with my kids. I miss them! Andy and I even did an overnight in Prescott. Was so good to see them.

Meanwhile, Gregg finished out the week in Oshkosh and drove the motorhome to Minneapolis. I flew back there from Phoenix and we had a couple of days to see friends there. So that is how we find ourselves in Minnesota this weekend...still
headed toward the southwest.

That yellow boat is on Lake Minnetonka, a restored street car boat. The street car line used to continue over water to the island in the lake. Beautiful!